Purdue Global: Sens. call out Purdue for demanding students waive right to sue

Senators, frequent critics of the Purdue-Kaplan deal, call on Purdue to stop forcing students to sign away their right to sue Purdue Global

Betty Vandenbosch, chancellor of Purdue Global, shows off shirts and hats from the new online arm of Purdue University, which launched Monday, April 2. Purdue Global is the rebranded Kaplan University, a former for-profit online university now operated by Purdue.(Photo: Mark Simons/Purdue University)

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – A pair of U.S. senators who have been critical, from the start, of Purdue University’s conversion of for-profit Kaplan University into Purdue Global piled on this week to calls for the university to get rid of a policy that forces students to sign away their rights to sue the school.

In a Sept. 19 letter to Michael Berghoff, chairman of the Purdue trustees, Sens. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, and Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, challenged Purdue to speed things up when it came to erasing what they called vestiges of “the troubled, predatory Kaplan University,” after Purdue finalized a deal to acquire the online giant in March.

In particular, they criticized slow going after it was revealed in the past month that Purdue Global’s “Policy Guide,” signed by every student at admission, kept students from joining class action lawsuits against the online school and forced them to agree to arbitrate all “disputes, controversies and claims.”

When the policy came to light – reported in late August in a commentary by Bob Shireman, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation and frequent Purdue Global critic – Purdue said that its trustees had “complete control over Purdue Global and has the final say as to which policies it retains, and which it alters.”

“The fact that the board has complete authority to operate the new university as it sees fit and to enact whatever policies it deems to be in the best interest of students is one that only the most unaware critics struggle to grasp,” Tim Doty, a Purdue spokesman, told the J&C at the time.

Durbin and Sherrod’s letter to Berghoff picked up from there.

“Purdue cannot have it both ways,” Durbin and Brown wrote. “Either the continued use of mandatory arbitration and class action bans in student enrollment are a remnant of Kaplan that the board disavows – in which case the board should use its authority to immediately end the practice – or the board must accept responsibility for the practice continuing under its control and acknowledge pre-dispute mandatory arbitration as an affirmed Purdue policy that it ‘deems to be in the interest of students.’ The choice is yours.”

Steve Schultz, Purdue’s top legal counsel, said the university would abide by guidelines set by the Higher Learning Commission, which is the accredits colleges and universities in 19 states.

“Arbitration is favored under a longstanding national policy declared by the Congress, of which Sen. Durbin is a member,” Schultz said. “In fact, he’s been a vocal supporter of it in other contexts.”

Purdue’s acquisition of Kaplan University – Purdue gave $1 to Kaplan Higher Education to take over operations in what it called an effort to expand the university’s land grant mission – has been controversial in some circles since it was unveiled in spring 2017. Part of that involves questions of transparency for Purdue Global, which is considered a “public benefit corporation,” as opposed to a state university covered by open records laws.

It also has opened Purdue to questions about the differences between how Purdue and the former Kaplan University handled student rights and the faculty’s academic freedom.

Two weeks ago, after the American Association of University Professors lodged a complaint, Purdue Global stopped making faculty members, roughly 2,000 of them, sign a nondisclosure agreement before they started teaching. Purdue Global Chancellor Betty Vandenbosch had told the J&C two weeks earlier that the nondisclosure agreement was “just not a big deal” and was a holdover from Kaplan University as a way to protect proprietary online course work. On Sept. 5, Vandenbosch wrote to Purdue Global faculty to say the policy – which she said always allowed for faculty to publish and hold onto their academic contributions – was no longer necessary.

That announcement did not cover the student policy about forced arbitration.

This week, the American Association of University Professors – another frequent critic of the Purdue-Kaplan deal – sent a petition signed by nearly 3,000 people to the Higher Learning Commission, which accredits more than 1,000 colleges and universities in 19 states, including Purdue and the former Kaplan University.

A team from the Higher Learning Commission was at Purdue on Sept. 10 and 11 to conduct a six-month review promised in its approval of Purdue Global. The commission had put a handful of conditions on its approval in March, including wanting confirmation that Purdue and Purdue Global were keeping their identities while still blending the two university models. Steve Kauffman, a Higher Learning Commission spokesman, said Thursday that the review would take weeks to finish.

The AAUP pressed the Higher Learning Commission to force Purdue’s hand on student rights, calling agreements they have to sign at Purdue Global “the stuff of predatory for-profit colleges, not a leading public research institution.”

Purdue and Purdue Global administrators, along with a faculty committee from the University Senate, have spent the past six months comparing courses and policies at the two universities. During a Sept. 10 University Senate meeting, Steve Beaudoin, a chemical engineering professor and a co-chairman of the faculty committee, said the committee was working with both universities to see whether the Purdue Global agreement actually treated students there differently than they are on the West Lafayette campus.

“The practice is in very common usage, including at our own accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission, which requires institutions like Purdue and Purdue Global to agree to binding arbitration,” Schultz said. “The HLC has adopted a policy on the use of arbitration provisions by its member institutions – effective next year – and the Purdue Global board will make sure Purdue Global’s arbitration language conforms to it.”

In November 2017, while the deal was still under review, Durbin and Brown sent a letter to Purdue President Mitch Daniels, asking for guarantees that Purdue would protect student rights as it waded close to the for-profit college industry’s “long history of troubling practices” and “worthless degrees and mountains of debt.”

“Indiana taxpayers risk becoming owners of a predatory for-profit college cloaked in the aura of your outstanding university,” they wrote.

Daniels said the senators were off-base. (“I’m embarrassed for them,” Daniels told WLFI in November. “Unfortunately, somebody misled the senators.”) Daniels has been unwavering in support for Purdue Global and what he says is a way for Purdue to reach non-traditional students who, otherwise, would never be able to spend time on the West Lafayette campus.

On Thursday, Emily Hampsten, a spokeswoman for Durbin, said the senator had not received a response from Purdue about this week’s letter or the one sent in September 2017.

Reach Dave Bangert at 765-420-5258 or at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.